Greece far worse than Ireland for driving.

keithclancy

Went on holidays to Greece (Halkidiki) there for 2 weeks and noticed that the driving there is absolutely terrible, had three near misses.

1. Turning left on a filter light the guy coming towards me blew threw a red light, once I realised he was going way to fast to stop in time I managed to swerve right just in time barely missing us as he skidded sideways through the junction.

2. Guy overtook me on a corner in a 90 km zone, I was doing the speed limit, he tears passed, I slow down, oncoming cars have to drive into the side of the road he swerves in narrowly missing front of the car.

3. Single lane indicated to turn left into a shopping center, waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic and when I get a gap I look over my left shoulder and some numpty has gone from stationary to overtake me. To make things worse I hear someone beeping their horn and look over my right shoulder to see the guy that was behind the other guy gunned it thinking I would be out of the way and lost control and then drove into a ditch :rolleyes:


In general the driving was sh*t I've never seen such impatience and risk taking. People were tailgating the whole time, it was a common occurrence to see people leaving a main road onto a dirt road while doing 100 km/h sometimes into a blind corner.

I think I saw 1 police car in Thessaloniki and didn't see any for the next 10 days, few Gatsos around the place but none of them every seemed to go off.

On the other hand the roads there are amazing for driving, heading up into the mountains in Sithonia the views are fantastic.

Conmaicne Mara

Arrived in Crete, got a taxi from the airport to the hotel. I believe there was 4 lanes, two going each way. Taxi straddled the middle double lines, doing 160+ kph while on the phone AND radio, at the same time!

Asked a tour guide about it later. He said if one taxi driver get's a ticket, he get's on the radio and the entire island grinds to a halt in protest. So basically there's no law or order when it comes to taxis anyway.

mike65

All Med countries are basically populated by excitable "yahoos" when it comes to roads.

More by luck than judgement....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8HOMU5UqkM

furtzy

Try Malta for some fun driving. NO rules of the road at all Annoying for the first day but once you get used to the madness its actually quite fun.

keithclancy

furtzy wrote: »

Try Malta for some fun driving. NO rules of the road at all Annoying for the first day but once you get used to the madness its actually quite fun.

Malta wasn't too bad ... although spent most of my time on Gozo.

Drink Driving there is pretty much the same as it was back in Ireland during the eighties.

Asked a guy for a taxi number and he said "No beer bus here, afraid you'll just have to have a few drinks and try your best"

Mar4ix

i found Egypt is unreal for normal people to drive(was in holidays 5 years ago in Sharm-el -Sheikh). after seeing how drives buses and taxi, i changed my mind to rent car, at the end anyway was cheaper get taxi for local drive. On roundaboust they doing opposite way as in Ireland.. who on roundabout, they have to give way to who comes on roundabout ... number times i thought we goin crash :pac:
also airplanes for local community (was goin to Cairo to see pyramids ) was risky to use, never pray God so much while was on

furtzy

keithclancy wrote: »

Malta wasn't too bad ... although spent most of my time on Gozo.

Drink Driving there is pretty much the same as it was back in Ireland during the eighties.

Asked a guy for a taxi number and he said "No beer bus here, afraid you'll just have to have a few drinks and try your best"

Gozo was very quiet. Malta itself especially the main roads into Valetta were bonkers. Back to the Greeks...corfu was pretty bad for the suicidal overtaking. 2 beeps means move over I'm going to pass regardless

Theta

I worked in Tunis for a few months one time.

They offered me a car but I said no ill get taxi receipts instead and thank god I did.

A 6 lane motorway (3 each side) turned into 12 lanes at some points with people using the the lane lines as indications where the middle of their car should be.

I was in numerous fender benders on round about and traffic lights and the taxi drivers laughed at me when i put my seat belt on (thats if they hadnt been cut out like they were on 90% of them)

dgt

Try Manilla for bonkers driving....

Deedsie

Go to Hanoi... Jeesus!!!! Beeeeeep beeeeep beeeeep

seamus

Greece's fatality rate is three times that of Ireland.

As much as we bitch about Irish driving, we are one of the safest countries in the world for driving.

blastman

Saigon was the most mental place I've been as a pedestrian, let alone driving. You basically cross the road through the traffic (mainly the two-wheeled variety). The system works surprisingly well.

Our man in Havana

Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. Completly nuts the lot of them.

rsole1

Our man in Havana wrote: »

Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. Completly nuts the lot of them.

India takes some beating for mad driving.

Happyman42

Remember being on a Greek island (Paros, I think) in the early eighties. We hired those scooters to see the island and were flabergasted at the driving. At a junction on our first day two taxi drivers almost collided int he middle of the road, got out of their taxi's and had a fist fight in the road and then got back in their cabs and drove off. The look on their passengers faces is a thing to cherish.

Turkey is crazy too, they seem to depend on the intercession of that little ceramic 'evil eye' yoke that hangs off the rear view mirror. :eek:

bop1977

Tunisia. I saw a go-kart tailgaiting cars on the road to the hotel.

Bahrain. I saw a guy mount the footpath and drive along it to pass a red light then hop back onto the road.

charlemont

seamus wrote: »

Greece's fatality rate is three times that of Ireland.

As much as we bitch about Irish driving, we are one of the safest countries in the world for driving.

So true, Iv no doubt if our rural roads were a wee bit better with more overtaking opportunities and bends taken out our driving fatalities would be even lower with a loss less road rage and less risky overtaking.

H3llR4iser

Lol, I am from Naples - see the Youtube clip at the beginning of the thread.

How does driving work in Italy, in general:

- You always drive swamped by a swarm of mopeds that are often driven by 14 years olds (they're legally entitled to do so in Italy) who have no idea about the rules of the road;

- Turning indicators...what are they?

- You might be driving up a narrow one way alley, IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, and find the middle-aged woman, driving the wrong way in a battered Punto, screaming at you at the top of her lungs that she has no insurance, calling you names and being generally abusive until you reverse all the way back to where you entered the road;

- You stop at a pedestrian crossing and the guy behind you sails past you, horn blasting and almost collecting the children/old lady you originally intended to let cross the read;

- Motorway, the traffic is slow or idle: a number of bright people start using the emergency lane until it gets just as clogged as the driving lanes.The fun starts when the highway patrol arrives on the scene and tries to go past;

- Parking is a lottery, in many areas you might spend 2 hours driving around looking for a spot as most residential areas are simply build without any parking space or garage;

- Traffic lights were a mere suggestion; This has finally changed thanks to the widespread introduction of cameras on them;

- Right of way and crossroads are usually a psychological game; The one with the more cheek / daring / the biggest car goes first. If you pay attention, you'll see that drivers don't really look at other cars when approaching a crossroad, but at EACH OTHER in some sort of staredown contest;

Most ridiculous / dangerous things I have seen:

- People going the wrong way in a roundabout because "oh come on, I'd have to go the whole way around otherwise!";

- Reversing up to 1 km on the motorway until the preceeding exit upon driving to congested traffic;

- Smart car parked on the tram tracks, a line of trams blocked up for 30 minutes behind it. When the owner finally arrives, he just strolls slowly, opens the car and drives away like nothing happened;

- Rubbish collection staff removes a big wheelie bin to empty it in the truck; As they do so, a girl parks her Smart where the bin was, locks it and walks away like nothing. Huge stream of profanities follows from the workers.


And you thought Ireland had bad drivers

seamus

H3llR4iser wrote: »

- You stop at a pedestrian crossing and the guy behind you sails past you, horn blasting and almost collecting the children/old lady you originally intended to let cross the read;

I was in Florence for a few days at one point and was advised not to bother driving in the city, so I didn't except for getting there and leaving. On the way out I hit a junction where the lights went amber, so I slowed and stopped, as I would do in Ireland. The amber light in Italy seems to last about twice as long as in Ireland, whoops, my bad, and there's a guy in a small van right up my arse who starts beeping and waving his hands and clearly shouting expletives at me.

After a few seconds of this the lights have gone red and he realises that I'm actually not going to go no matter how much he complains. So he goes around me and blasts through the red light out into the middle of traffic coming from our left, still gesturing and cursing at me the entire time.

blastman

Just to keep the flag flying for appalling Irish driving, I was driving towards Dublin last night on the M4. As I passed Liffey Valley, I was moving left to get in the lane for the slip road on to the M50 Northbound. As I entered the slip road, I noticed a car on my right, stopped, with his indicator on trying to turn left on to the same slip as he had almost but not quite missed the exit.

H3llR4iser

seamus wrote: »

I was in Florence for a few days at one point and was advised not to bother driving in the city, so I didn't except for getting there and leaving. On the way out I hit a junction where the lights went amber, so I slowed and stopped, as I would do in Ireland. The amber light in Italy seems to last about twice as long as in Ireland, whoops, my bad, and there's a guy in a small van right up my arse who starts beeping and waving his hands and clearly shouting expletives at me.

After a few seconds of this the lights have gone red and he realises that I'm actually not going to go no matter how much he complains. So he goes around me and blasts through the red light out into the middle of traffic coming from our left, still gesturing and cursing at me the entire time.

There you go, everyday administration - especially with "small van" drivers. As for the yellow, it's a curse - on some lights it lasts forever, some others only have it for 1 or 2 seconds. Just adding to the confusion, really

Sobanek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Laj9TXU6KM

:pac:

Mar4ix

Sobanek wrote: »

0Laj9TXU6KM

:pac:

thats some vid, have feelings somebody drives invisible car , and other people reacts only when horn pressed. :pac:

Uriel.

In Greece, it's lack of enforcement that's the major thing. Penalties etc... are far greater for motor offences than here.

For example, being caught without a seatbelt is €350 fine plus 10 days off the road. Yet very few people wear seatbelts.

Why? Because the police, particularly in rural areas don't really want to enforce the law. A personal example of this - in August driving a long a stretch of road maybe about 2km long - straight road. Night time driving. cops set up a checkpoint one side of the road, bluelights on, right at the end of the straight. It gives people plenty of notice to put on seatbelts or take one of the 3 or 4 turns offs along the way if they have had a few drinks.

Really mad stuff really. But apparently they throw the book at you if they do catch you. I guess it's a case of, you have so much warning, so if you are stupid/ignorant enough not to heed this warning, then you are gonna suffer.

Btw, lol at a previous poster's statement that all the taxi drivers going on strike if one got a ticket--- just no.

biko

Don't even get me started on India...

keithclancy

Sobanek wrote: »

:pac:

Notice how the horn changes 2 mins 50 in ..... must have worn out :pac::pac::pac:

Took a video of a Greek Goat jam ... Taxi driver behind me lost patience (after around 5 seconds and just started pushing goats out of the way with the car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdUX1mFeH38

KayTreg

Have to throw my tuppence in on the crazyness of Malta.

Rental cars all have recognisable reg, the locals see the reg and automatically pull out from a minor road so you have to swerve to avoid. I call rental cars idiot magnets.

Round abouts, the cars on the round about have to give way to those screaming onto the rounabout, partly caused by the target reg plates, they see your a tourist and say fook it and drive on, so you have to avoid.

Red lights at night, you might want to slow down and think about stopping, slow down if the coast is clear, sure carry on.

Road markings? what are they for.

Road signs, where can we hide them so the tourists cant find them.

Rules of the road, whoever is left standing after the incident and fight is the winner.

They will drive up your hole almost touching your bumper with a solid white line down the middle of the road, straddling the white line with there front wheels, trying to force you off the road, then when there is a gap, clouds of black smoke as they try to pass you and end up cutting you up to avoid the inevitable oncoming car.

Like someone else said it becomes amusing after your get used to it and start to drive like them, only way to deal with it force them out of the way.

The cops drive the exact same way.

As for gozo, if you put your lights on as the sun starts to go down, limited visibility, the locals will flash you to turn them off and stop blinding them lol. Its pitch black by the time they actually turn there lights on, so youve got loads of cars driving around in the dark with no lights on, almost reminds me of the egyptians driving through he desert at night with there lights off to save petrol lol

And as for the roads, aslong as you keep to the path the queen was on a few years back you will be grand, stray off that road journey she took...and its like driving on the surface of the moon, bar the couple of new roads they got recently.

Francie Barrett

H3llR4iser wrote: »

- Parking is a lottery, in many areas you might spend 2 hours driving around looking for a spot as most residential areas are simply build without any parking space or garage;

I noticed in Rome that the majority of cars in the city had deep gash marks down the sides where the car had obviously been involved in a scrape with another vehicle. I would hate to own a nice car in that city.

Mar4ix

i've noticed in spain people parking bumper to bumper, it is alright to bump car on front of you and rear one, just to get out or get in in to parking space. bumpers for parking. :pac:

keithclancy

Road markings? what are they for.

Exact same in Greece.
That whole solid/broken/double broken, double yellow lines etc might as well have been hieroglyphics

Road signs, where can we hide them so the tourists cant find them.

Also the exact same, you'd follow a sign, stay on the main road for ages then get worried, retrace your path and then find a sign hidden in the bushes back along the road.

They will drive up your hole almost touching your bumper with a solid white line down the middle of the road, straddling the white line with there front wheels, trying to force you off the road, then when there is a gap, clouds of black smoke as they try to pass you and end up cutting you up to avoid the inevitable oncoming car.

This was the very same, I just pulled in and left them pass... it was safer.

Like someone else said it becomes amusing after your get used to it and start to drive like them, only way to deal with it force them out of the way.

Yeh .... after a few hours my wife commented that she didn't think I would acclimatise so quickly, didn't even realise I was using the horn every 5 minutes

Conmaicne Mara

Sobanek wrote: »

:pac:

That reminded me of the game Carmageddon Obviously the Poles have played it too :cool:

Celly Smunt

never go into the inside lane of a roundabout in saudi arabia unless you have hours to kill.

CiniO

Mar4ix wrote: »

On roundaboust they doing opposite way as in Ireland.. who on roundabout, they have to give way to who comes on roundabout ... number times i thought we goin crash :pac:

It's not only Egypt.
Nearly all over Continent of Europe rules of the road state the above.
As generally drivers coming from the right have right of way on junctions of roads of equal importance, then roundabouts are no exception.
People entering roundabout have right of way over traffic already on the roundabout, as they come from the right side..
The only thing is, that most roundabouts have this changed, by putting yield sign on entrance to roundabout. And that would be the case with most roundabouts.
But if you ever encounter roundabout without yield sign on the continent, then traffic entering roundabout has right of way over traffic already on the rouandabout.

CiniO

Sobanek wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Laj9TXU6KM

:pac:

I've seen that video few times before. It looks like most of those video done by the same driver.
He seems to attract dangerous situations for some reason.
Over about 200k kilometres I've driven in Poland I don't think I encountered as many sitations like that as on this video.

Recently I was in Poland for 10 days. I've traveled about 1500km. I took my dashcam with me, to make sure I'll compile similar video, but unfortunately over 1500km I didn't encounter even single one interesting road situation that would be worth putting on youtube.

Mar4ix

CiniO wrote: »

It's not only Egypt.
Nearly all over Continent of Europe rules of the road state the above.
As generally drivers coming from the right have right of way on junctions of roads of equal importance, then roundabouts are no exception.
People entering roundabout have right of way over traffic already on the roundabout, as they come from the right side..
The only thing is, that most roundabouts have this changed, by putting yield sign on entrance to roundabout. And that would be the case with most roundabouts.
But if you ever encounter roundabout without yield sign on the continent, then traffic entering roundabout has right of way over traffic already on the rouandabout.

Swear to God, didnt know that, learning something new every day.

CiniO

seamus wrote: »

Greece's fatality rate is three times that of Ireland.

As much as we bitch about Irish driving, we are one of the safest countries in the world for driving.

Looks like that Irish attitude "I won't bother learning to drive or obeying any rules of the road... I'll just take it easy and slowly, and I'll be grand" seems to work very well, as statistics are as you say - Ireland roads are one of the safest in the world.

Sobanek

CiniO wrote: »

I've seen that video few times before. It looks like most of those video done by the same driver.
He seems to attract dangerous situations for some reason.
Over about 200k kilometres I've driven in Poland I don't think I encountered as many sitations like that as on this video.

Recently I was in Poland for 10 days. I've traveled about 1500km. I took my dashcam with me, to make sure I'll compile similar video, but unfortunately over 1500km I didn't encounter even single one interesting road situation that would be worth putting on youtube.

Depends where you go to. Had maybe three, four of similar situations in Warsaw during my last visit.